Real Housewives of Orange County star Shannon Beador is ready to talk about the lawsuit she’s facing from ex-boyfriend John Janssen.
“Even though it’s not warranted, I offered to pay John the exact amount that he wanted,” Beador, 59, said on the Monday, April 1, episode of SiriusXM’s Jeff Lewis Live. “But he turned the deal down because he didn’t want to sign a mutual non-disparagement agreement and that’s standard in most settlements and that’s where you say you’re not gonna talk badly about someone.”
After consulting with her attorneys, Beador believes the best decision moving forward is to have the case play out in trial.
“It’s frustrating because now my hands are tied,” she explained. “What am I supposed to do? Say, ‘Here’s all this money that you claim that I owe you and go ahead. Say whatever you want about me.’ No. My attorney said I can’t let you do that, so I have to now go to trial and that’s a lot.”
Janssen, 61, filed a lawsuit against Beador on March 20, per court documents obtained by People, suing her for breach of oral contract and promissory fraud, claiming that she failed to repay him $75,000.
In court documents, Janssen alleged that Beador asked him for the money in 2022. He sent her $40,000 via wire transfer in January of that year, which was allegedly used for a plastic surgery procedure. He also allegedly paid her a secondary $35,000, given by personal check.
Janssen claimed in the court docs that Beador has failed to return the money even though she agreed to pay him back with interest.
From Beador’s perspective, she also gave her ex-boyfriend money throughout their relationship.
“There were two times where he gave me money and there were many times where I paid for things or gave, which you would say equates to me giving him money so you wanna go tit for tat,” she said to host Jeff Lewis. “You want me to show the tens of thousands of dollars that I spent. That’s kind of what I’m doing right now with my time and it’s not fun.”
Beador continued, “Let me be clear. For the second half of our relationship, John paid for stuff. But at the beginning, I did. So when we traveled, the hotels, the airfare, I think John only bought me one airline ticket in our entire relationship. I always did, and so, you know, I took him to New York four times in four months in our first six months of dating.”
According to Beador, there wasn’t a written agreement or payment plan to pay each other back.
“At the very beginning of the relationship, he said, ‘You’re my future. You’re my person. You’re my future,’” the Bravo star recalled. “That’s what he said and I thought, ‘Yeah.’ I felt this comfort with him right away and I thought we were going to be together forever.”
In January 2023, Beador confirmed her breakup with Janssen after more than three and a half years of dating. He is now dating Alexis Bellino, who will be part of the Real Housewives of Orange County season 18 cast alongside Beador.
Beador previously explained why she was hurt by Janssen’s new relationship, telling E! News in December 2023 that “John is very well aware of a lawsuit that I was involved in with Jim Bellino, and Alexis was involved in that lawsuit. I was financially and emotionally devastated for years. And I won. But it devastated me financially. And I’m a single mom. John’s aware of that.”
When asked why Janssen decided to file a lawsuit at this time, Beador didn’t have a reason.
“I really don’t know,” she said. “Is he spending a lot of money? I don’t know what he does for work anymore. …I don’t know anything and that’s fine.”
Beador continued, “I want to move forward with my life. I don’t want to think about John Janssen. I don’t want to think about him anymore. I am in a really good place mentally and I want to keep going forward, not backward.”
In response to Beador’s latest interview, Janssen’s attorney released a statement denying some of her claims.
“It’s shameful that Ms. Beador gets on national media and tells a story that Mr. Janssen’s payments to her were gifts,” Edson K. McClellan, Rutan & Tucker LLP, said in a statement to Us Weekly on Tuesday, April 2. “Mr. Janssen made the second loan to her after they had already broken up, and Ms. Beador promised to pay him back.”
“Ms. Beador has been bad-mouthing him on RHOC for years, telling complete falsehoods, and Mr. Janssen doesn’t want to be accused of breaching a non-disparagement provision when he sets the record straight,” the statement continued. “Ms. Beador has tried to connect Mr. Janssen’s lawsuit to his relationship with Alexis Bellino. There is no connection. Mr. Janssen filed the lawsuit because it is apparently the only way he will be able to recover the money he loaned Ms. Beador.”
